Review

Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology

The Gifts They Bring: How Children in the Gospels Can Shape Inclusive Ministry

Applying a “childist” lens to the Gospels reorients the reader to learn from children’s often overlooked presence and experience. New Testament professor and ELCA minister Amy Linderman Allen opens the reader’s eyes to new understandings of commonly child-associated Gospel stories and studiously reveals the perspective of the child within stories where they have been previously unnoticed.

read more
Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology

Luli and the Language of Tea; Quiet Time with My Seeya

How do we communicate without language? As a writer and publisher—someone who relies on words—this is a question I like to avoid if I want to pay my rent. Two recently published children’s books, Luli and the Language of Tea by Andrea Wang and Quiet Time with My Seeya by Dinalie Dabarera, confront language barriers and find community and love in play, in gathering around a table, and in sharing a cup of tea.

read more
Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology

Sing No Empty Alleluias

Many of Christianity’s notable hymn text writers have been ministers, from Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley in the eighteenth century to Ruth Duck and Carolyn Winfrey Gillette in the twenty-first. The pulpit/poet connection makes sense. In their ministerial training, clergy are steeped in Scripture and theology.

read more
Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology

And We Shall Learn through the Dance

It is an honor and a privilege to be asked to review Dr. Kathleen Turner’s book, And We Shall Learn through the Dance: Liturgical Dance as Religious Education. Dancer to dancer, she speaks to my heart. This is a book to savor. In fact, I am not aware of any book on liturgical dance that specifically explores the role of liturgical dance as a primary tool for education within church communities.

read more
Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology

What Is Ministry But Love in Action?

What is ministry but love in action? Two children’s picture books—What Is Love? by Mac Barnett and Love by Matt de la Peña—describe the various ways love shows up in different people’s lives. Both of these books would serve as an excellent starting point for discussing the meaning of love with children and exploring how we can show love to others.

read more
Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology

Revived through the Work of Women in the Pulpit

I’ve been feeling less imaginative lately, and I have realized that I gave away a great deal of my creativity to COVID-era videos and parking lot services. As my creativity has dwindled, my exhaustion, impatience, and thirst for fulfillment have grown. Even (and maybe especially) as society has “returned to normal,” the gumption behind my own pastoral identity still feels tasteless lately.

read more